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Drink with Shane MacGowan

Name: Drink with Shane MacGowan
Author: Shane MacGowan
ISBN: 9780802137906

by Shane MacGowan, Victoria Mary Clarke

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Overview

Best known as the cofounder of the Irish band the Pogues, Shane MacGowan has become a cult figure on the alternative-music scene. His achingly beautiful lyrics, as well as his legendary lifestyle of excess, have earned him an avid following that packs his shows and buys his albums. One of the most unusual memoirs to come along in quite a while, A Drink with Shane MacGowan is structured as a series of interviews between MacGowan and his wife, Clarke. The singer recounts his experiences growing up on a farm in Ireland, where his family began giving him two pints of Guinness a night at the tender age of five and his father took him to hang out with bookies and drunks at the local pub. He tells of moving to London and becoming part of the London club scene in the mid-1970s, just as punk was beginning to emerge, offering a firsthand portrait of a seminal time and place in music history. MacGowan also provides his own, strongly opinionated views on the Pogues' success and the reasons for his abrupt departure from the band. As he invites us into this fascinating world, MacGowan tells many hilarious stories and riffs on a wide range of subjects, from Irish history and politics to literature, film, religion, his own substance abuse, and much more. Sometimes maddening, sometimes charming, often brilliant, and always honest, A Drink with Shane MacGowan is an enjoyable romp with a truly unique personality.

Synopsis

Best known as the cofounder of the Irish band The Pogues, Shane MacGowan has become a cult figure on the alternative-music scene. His achingly beautiful lyrics, as well as his legendary lifestyle of excess, have earned him an avid following that packs his shows and buys his albums. One of the most unusual memoirs to come along in quite a while, A Drink with Shane MacGowan is structured as a series of interviews between MacGowan and his wife, Clarke. The singer recounts his experiences growing up on a farm in Ireland, where his family began giving him two pints of Guinness a night at the tender age of five and his father took him to hang out with bookies and drunks at the local pub. He tells of moving to London and becoming part of the London club scene in the mid-1970s, just as punk was beginning to emerge, offering a firsthand portrait of a seminal time and place in music history. MacGowan also provides his own, strongly opinionated views on The Pogues' success and the reasons for his abrupt departure from the band. As he invites us into this fascinating world, MacGowan tells many hilarious stories and riffs on a wide range of subjects, from Irish history and politics to literature, film, religion, his own substance abuse, and much more. Sometimes maddening, sometimes charming, often brilliant, and always honest, A Drink with Shane MacGowan is an enjoyable romp with a truly unique personality. PRAISE FOR SHANE MACGOWAN: "MacGowan can be a dazzling songwriter, channeling his unruliness into rambunctious tales of drinking, sporting, drinking, fighting, and drinking."--Los Angeles Times

Los Angeles Times

MacGowan can be a dazzling songwriter, channeling his unruliness into rambunctious tales of drinking, sporting, drinking, fighting, and drinking.

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Editorials

From Barnes & Noble

We've never read a memoir quite like this one. Through a series of interviews conducted by his wife, Pogues founding member and rock icon Shane MacGowan reveals his life story. In addition to describing his childhood on a farm in Tipperary, MacGowan mouths off about everything from London's early punk scene to religion and politics -- and everything in between. Although it's interesting to hear the brash, unapologetic MacGowan discuss his opinions on film, identity, or the IRA, the best parts of the book by far are his reminiscences of the music scene he was immersed in during the early 1970s. MacGowan regales readers with tale after tale of punk excess, run-ins with the police, and, best of all, writing music in a thriving scene that included seminal artists like the Sex Pistols, Elvis Costello, and Siouxsie and the Banshees.

Los Angeles Times

MacGowan can be a dazzling songwriter, channeling his unruliness into rambunctious tales of drinking, sporting, drinking, fighting, and drinking.

Publishers Weekly

Let this be a forewarning to all self-respecting pop pinups and rock stars pondering penning an autobiography or memoir: do not, as former Pogues singer and lyricist MacGowan and his writer-wife Clarke did, use a question-and-answer format. This collaboration, the couple's first, is an especially unfortunate publishing fatality because MacGowan's life is such a juicy subject, and its exaggerated, grandiosely booze- and drug-littered escapades and cameos by Sid Vicious, Johnny Rotten and Elvis Costello are worthy of a second look. After drinking his first stout at the tender age of five with the milkman, MacGowan went on to play a major role in London's punk scene in the mid- and late 1970s. Later, he founded the Irish band The Pogues, which merged Irish folk styles with rock and roll. (MacGowan has also recorded with the Popes and on his own.) However, the book's Q&A format blends these and other adventures with inane revelations ("I've been a lover and a hater of beetroot all my life"), petty spats, ridiculous questions ("Tell me more about Matt Dillon") and contrived, self-flattering stage directions ("Victoria, radiant as ever, in pale green silk which becomes her consumes a plate of chips, hungrily"). 16 b&w photos not seen by PW. (June) Forecast: Booksellers shouldn't expect rocking numbers, for it's doubtful that even most diehard fans will find this unedited banter between MacGowan and his missus stimulating. Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information.

Library Journal

An irreverent look into the colorful convictions of Irish cult hero MacGowan, this book occasionally entertains but ultimately suffers from MacGowan's persistent self-aggrandizement. Presented in a messy question-and-answer format, with Clarke (MacGowan's wife) in the interviewer's seat, this collaboration exploits MacGowan's success as one of the founding members of the Irish rock band, the Pogues. The authors assume that this past musical achievement renders him a worthy critic of politics, literature, and religious practices. Unfounded rants abound, unfortunately overshadowing the book's intriguing coverage of MacGowan's intimate ties to London's 1970s punk and 1980s post-punk scenes. The former Pogues singer/songwriter was revealed to greater effect in Niall Stanage's Down All the Days: The Life and Music of Shane MacGowan (o.p.). Not recommended. Caroline Dadas, Univ. of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign Saivetz, Deborah. An Event in Space: JoAnne Akalaitis in Rehersal. Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information.